The best glass? Equitable access to quality education in inner-city Kingston,Jamaica

a. Jamaica’s historical and educational context

The Middle Passage, endured by the forebears of today’s Jamaicans, was arguably among history’s most brutal, dehumanizing occurrences. Out of this violence Jamaica was born. Orlando Patterson⁽⁵⁾ describes Jamaica as a small island paradox, celebrated for its athletes and cultural icons, yet also home to international drug and gun barons and a failed economy. He quotes economic historians Burnard, Panza and Williamson, who conclude that “late-eighteenth century Jamaica was the most unequal society in the world”.⁽⁶⁾ Enslaved people struggled to survive.

This inequality still persists. The Jamaican sociologist Hyacinth Evans recognizes it as “a result of the colonial experience, the legacies of having subordinate and dominant groups based on race, the attributions of superiority and inferiority on the basis of that dominance and subordination, the continued existence of such attitudes, and the pervasiveness of Eurocentric values”.⁽⁷⁾ These inequalities have been perpetuated through the educational system, where parents with the financial resources paid for their children to attend preparatory schools. The “traditional” high schools, mainly founded by mainstream churches, were also attended by middle- and upper-class children, while secondary schools, more recently upgraded to high schools (commonly referred to as “non-traditional” high schools) were attended by those who did not pass the exams for the high schools. Although attempts have been made to create a more equitable system, based on the results of the PEP (Primary Exit Profile) examination, the children of the poor are still more likely to be placed in the primary and junior high schools (formerly the all-age schools created for the children of previously enslaved people), while the children of the middle and upper classes more often attend the higher-ranked traditional high schools.

b. The Jamaican framework

Jamaica’s education policies are frequently framed with reference to international agendas.⁽⁸⁾ The Government of Jamaica has also engaged actively in the Millennium Development Goals (2000) and the Sustainable Development Goals (2015), both of which highlight education. SDG4 calls for “inclusive and equitable quality education and. . .lifelong learning opportunities for all”. Global priorities for education are embedded in key national policy documents, including the Vision 2030 Jamaica - National Development Plan.⁽⁹⁾ One objective of the Ministry of Education, Youth and Information (MOEYI) is to “increase compliance with national and international standards, laws and regulations”.⁽¹⁰⁾ The philosophy that “every child can learn and every child must learn” is written on all official ministry documentation. In July 2020 the Education Transformation Commission was launched with the responsibility of reviewing the nation’s public education system and making recommendations. However, the effectiveness of the education system is not only informed by the implementation of government policies. Ainscow points to the “beyond school factors” and concludes that “closing the gap in outcomes. . .will only happen when what happens to children outside as well as inside school changes”. This requires appropriate support from families and the wider community.⁽¹¹⁾

a. Community life

The inequality of Jamaican society is particularly evident in the patterns of deprivation observable in inner-city Kingston, which in many cases have deep historical roots.⁽¹²⁾ The inner city is characterized by poverty, high levels of unemployment and underemployment, and endemic violence, among other deprivations. Although new homes were built in part of Hannah Town in the late 1980s, some families still live in tenement yards, occupying one or two rooms in an old house (often with additional shacks in the yard) and sharing cooking and water facilities. One indicator of the level of poverty is that 20 per cent of the children attending the Chetolah Mel Nathan Education Centre are on the PATH programme,⁽¹³⁾ a conditional cash transfer initiative targeted at the most vulnerable households. Despite these challenges, families are generally proud of their homes and most residents are prepared to make sacrifices for their children’s schooling, seeing education as a way out of poverty.

b. Access and performance in the inner city

All Jamaican children are entitled to free primary education, and enrolment has been consistently high, with a gross enrolment of 99.4 per cent in 2016.⁽¹⁴⁾ Children usually attend schools close to home, but parents are free to apply to the schools of their choice. Prep schools are fee-charging primary schools, with fees based on the teacher–student ratio, the level of resources and the facilities. According to interviewees, children from the inner city lack access to traditional prep schools, with their higher standards, which are seen as expensive and “elitist”. There are also barriers to access at some government primary schools that are “more in line with the prep schools” – acceptance can be a question of “who knows who”.

Student outcomes are measured by Grade Four Literacy and Numeracy tests as well as PEP.⁽¹⁵⁾ Grade 4 outcomes have steadily improved, and in 2017, almost 96 per cent of children achieved mastery or near mastery in literacy and 92 per cent in numeracy.⁽¹⁶⁾ In 2019, the first year of the education centre, in line with more general results, only one child (5 per cent of the total) failed to achieve mastery in literacy and one in numeracy. When choosing schools, parents pay close attention to schools’ pass rates in the PEP, as they want their children to be placed in higher-ranking high schools, usually the traditional high schools.

The results of the Grade Six Achievement Test (GSAT) and, since 2019, the PEP, are made available to individual schools and parents but are not normally in the public domain. However, in 2014 and 2015, the Jamaica Gleaner newspaper accessed the data and contracted Johnson Survey Research to analyse the scores and to rank primary and prep schools accordingly. These rankings were published by parish,⁽¹⁷⁾ and those for Kingston and St Andrew⁽¹⁸⁾ provide a picture of the Mel Nathan Preparatory School and Chetolah Park Primary School in relation to other local schools prior to the merger in 2018.

In 2014, 169 schools in Kingston and St Andrew entered students for the GSAT exam and 170 in 2015. Researchers added up the average scores for each school for the five subject areas – Mathematics, Science, Social Studies, Language Arts and Communication Tasks – to produce a total out of a possible 400 points. The national average was 262.⁽¹⁹⁾ In 2014, Mel Nathan Prep was ranked 78th in Kingston and St Andrew, with an average of 277; and 86th in 2015, with an average of 275. Chetolah Park Primary was ranked 157th in 2014, with an average of 194; and 155th in 2015, with an average of 203. Mel Nathan, then, scored over the national average, and Chetolah Park Primary well below it. In both years, six inner-city primary schools ranked higher than Mel Nathan Prep. (Five of them had some of the largest numbers of students sitting the examination, ranging from over 150 to almost 200 students.) The five other inner-city primary schools in or near Hannah Town all ranked between Mel Nathan Prep and Chetolah Park Primary School in both years.

Various factors in the inner city, including poverty and violence, can prevent children’s regular school attendance, thereby affecting achievement. Some specific government initiatives have been designed to address these issues, including the social safety net programme. The Programme of Advancement through Health and Education (PATH), one of Jamaica’s social safety net programmes, enables children to attend school and to be fed through conditional cash transfers, free school meals and health services. The maximum monthly transfer amount is less than US$ 10 per child. Reports from recipients and community leaders often mention the stigma attached to the PATH programme, heightened for example by the way lunch vouchers are distributed.⁽²⁰⁾

Attendance at school can also be affected by community violence, as it can be unsafe for children to leave home during upsurges of violence. This will be addressed in the next subsection.

c. Education in Hannah Town

When people talk about the rich history of Chetolah Park Primary School, they recall a large, successful school. A review of school records around 1960 shows an enrolment of between 1,200 and 1,500 children across the six grades. By 1992, however, there were only about 300 students, and by 2017–2018, only 75 students were enrolled.

The Mel Nathan Prep School opened in 1994, with 26 children, mainly in Grade 1, and a few in the upper grades. By 1999, the school had about 180 children. In its final year, 2017–2018, there were 102 children. One reason for this decline was the establishment of infant departments in some local primary schools, including Chetolah Park. After one year in the prep school’s early childhood institution, many parents moved their children to these other infant schools, where there were more trained teachers and no school fees. Two years later, these children moved into the respective primary schools, rather than re-entering the prep school.

After the merger, the Chetolah Mel Nathan Education Centre opened with 140 primary school children and 42 infants. Some prep school parents, particularly those with children in Grades 1 and 2, chose not to send them to the education centre, wanting them to continue attending a prep school. In 2019, the education centre enrolled 144 primary children and 32 infants, followed in 2020 by 140 primary children and 34 infants.

A number of factors have contributed to these declining school populations. First of all, the overall population of the Parish of Kingston has declined. Based on census data, it dropped from 123,403 in 1960 to 89,057 in 2011. (Over the same period, Jamaica’s population in total increased from 1.6 million to 2.7 million.) Many Kingston families moved to new housing developments in Portmore, an overspill suburb of Kingston, where the population is currently estimated to be 200,000.⁽²¹⁾ Although its first housing scheme was built in 1969, the first new primary school was not built there until 1978.⁽²²⁾ Some parents who moved to Portmore, but worked in Kingston, continued to bring their children to school in downtown Kingston until schools were built nearer to home.

Meanwhile, Kingston’s inner-city neighbourhood of Hannah Town was affected by a housing redevelopment programme in West Kingston in the late 1980s. Tenement yards nearest to the schools were replaced by 175 one- and two-storey houses and two apartment blocks. In addition, 346 families moved to new homes at Torrington Park, about half a mile away.⁽²³⁾ Some children continued to return to school in Hannah Town, but over the years, most moved to schools nearer home.

Finally, there is the issue of community violence. Without denying its horrific and traumatic consequences, its endemic nature means it is often treated as a fact of life in Hannah Town and surrounding communities, and it has not been responsible for as much attrition as might be expected. Occasionally, community violence has impacted the schools’ enrolment. The “Tivoli incursion” in mid-2010, for instance, centred around the extradition request for Christopher “Dudus” Coke, the leader of a violent drug cartel, based in Tivoli Gardens, to the west of Hannah Town. This incursion involved armed conflict between the military and police forces and Coke’s cartel, and resulted in Coke’s eventual extradition to the United States and a commission of enquiry. At this time, some families moved out of the area and others moved their children to schools where they did not have to walk between warring communities or cross barricades to reach school. This was an exceptional time, however, in the life of West Kingston’s residents, who are generally used to gang violence as an ever-present reality. Violence does not usually prevent children from walking to and from school or cause noticeable absences from school, but children are certainly affected emotionally and sometimes physically by the violence. In October 2017, Denham Town, including Hannah Town, was declared the second zone of special operations (ZOSO) because of “the ongoing gang warfare, rampant criminality, escalating violence and murder, and a threat to rule of law”, according to Prime Minister Andrew Holness.⁽²⁴⁾ This was succeeded in early 2019 by a state of emergency, more far reaching than a ZOSO and entailing a continuous military presence and checkpoints at entry and exit points in the community.

Despite the declining school population, however, no schools have actually closed in downtown Kingston and the government continues to provide the same level of resources as to other primary schools, with schools in the inner city benefitting from some special interventions.

d. The COVID-19 pandemic

The final contextual issue addressed here relates to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on inner-city children. The 2020 update report on the SDGs notes, “School closures worldwide may reverse years of progress in access to education”.⁽²⁵⁾ More than 190 countries implemented countrywide school closures, and about 90 per cent of students were out of school. Even though some distance learning measures were implemented in four out of five of these countries, at least 500 million children and youth lacked access to these learning opportunities. According to the report, “Without remedial action, the effects of COVID-19 will only add to the obstacles faced by poor children in completing their education”.⁽²⁶⁾ The report recognizes the effects of prolonged classroom absence, such as lower retention and graduation rates and worsening learning outcomes. Children from poor households are at a greater disadvantage. Even where distant learning measures are in place, “Remote learning remains out of reach for most students in the poorest countries”.⁽²⁷⁾ Many disadvantaged children lack access to computers and the internet at home, and successful online learning depends on the computer skills of both teachers and parents. The specific effects of the pandemic on children in Kingston’s inner city will be explored next.

a. Global trends

Both the Chetolah Mel Nathan Education Centre and the Mel Nathan Prep School before it are reflections of broader global trends in the effort to provide access to a quality education for children.

The first of these trends is the emergence of a growing number of low-fee private schools (LFPS) in some low-income countries, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and Latin America.⁽²⁸⁾ These are defined as “private schools that have been set up and are owned by an individual or group of individuals for the purpose of making a profit, and are supposed to be ‘affordable’ for low-income families”.⁽²⁹⁾ Although some are for-profit, others are operated by churches and other charitable organizations, as was the case with the prep school. According to Moschetti,⁽³⁰⁾ there have been some government subsidies for LFPS in Argentina since the 1940s, so these schools do not have to fund all their expenses. There are several reasons for establishing these schools, including parental preference, the desire for better-quality education, increased opportunities in later years, better management, more committed teachers and an insufficient number of state schools. Furthermore, “big international donors and transnational corporations are backing the expansion of LFPS as a legitimate form of educational provision in the South”,⁽³¹⁾ as a means of meeting the SDGs for primary education. In some countries, it is relatively easy to establish these schools, due to a lack of regulation.

While Mel Nathan Preparatory School was unique in Jamaica, it clearly has counterparts in other countries. It operated as a church-based, not-for-profit institution, but in the end, lacked a sustainable income. Parents’ choice of this kind of education is similar to that in other parts of the world.

The other important global trend is the blurring of boundaries between private and government provision, and the growing emergence of deliberate partnerships. The stage at which a private school – receiving government support for infrastructure, materials or salaries – becomes a government school, varies from country to country. For example, in Chile, only about half of all schools are considered government schools, although the majority receive some government support.⁽³²⁾ Although systems vary, the main issue is governments’ commitment to education; and in many places, the combination of public, private and public/private schools allows for universal primary education and for international commitments to be met. Some parents opt for private education based on a lack of quality in government schools, teacher absenteeism, or their preference for the ethos or values in private institutions. Others may opt for government schools based on their resources and affordability.⁽³³⁾ The growing trend towards government support for non-governmental alternatives reflects a commitment to making both values and resources an option for all children.

While the Chetolah Mel Nathan Education Centre reflects global trends on this front, this kind of actual merger of two schools appears to be less common and deserves to be explored in more detail.

b. Chetolah Park Primary School and Mel Nathan Preparatory School

c. The merger

The initiative to seek a merger of the prep school with Chetolah Park Primary School was led by the board of the prep school and the United Church leadership; it involved dialogue with senior staff at the Ministry of Education, which was responsive to the idea. Chetolah Park was chosen because it was across the road from the prep school, and both schools recruited primarily from Hannah Town and the immediate environs. Since the establishment of the prep school, government primary schools and teachers, including Chetolah Park’s, had benefitted from a number of improvements, including more staff with a bachelor’s degree, literacy and numeracy specialists, guidance counsellors, increased salaries, smaller classes⁽³⁵⁾ and a range of special programmes. Meanwhile, from the prep school’s perspective, the costs of delivering a prep school education in the inner city had grown much more rapidly than expected. There was the challenge of maintaining quality staff, who required salaries in line with those in government schools. The teachers’ colleges were offering undergraduate degrees and these became mandatory after 2004, thus increasing the cost of teachers’ salaries. Many parents had become unwilling or unable to pay the small fee. Apart from the government paying one staff salary from the beginning and later an additional two, the school was dependent on fundraising to meet its recurrent costs.

In early 2018, it was felt that the climate was conducive to a discussion about a merger. The regional director at the MOEYI was very supportive and recognized the advantages that the merger could bring to inner-city education. Because Chetolah Park had been built to house over 1,000 students, it could easily accommodate the infant and primary school children, while the prep school building could house the early childhood department. The regional director facilitated meetings among the leadership and teachers in both schools, the parent–teacher associations and the local community to discuss the proposal and seek approval. The merger was accomplished in September 2018. To effect a smooth transition, it was agreed that Chetolah Park’s chair and board would continue in their roles, with two added members from the prep school board, until it was time to appoint a new board. There were no concerns about access as there was space to accommodate all applicants. Although this was a unique merger for primary education in Jamaica, it had precedents at the high school level. Most of the traditional high schools, originally church schools, had over time become part of the government system as grant-aided institutions. The church continued to own the land and buildings and to have formal representation on the school board, whilst the government paid salaries and other recurrent expenses. Infrastructure projects were effected through church and government partnerships.

d. The strengths of the merger

Interviews with stakeholders provided insights into the components of a quality education. There was general agreement among interviewees that the prep school offered “very good quality” education, of which “we can be proud”, one that emphasized not just academic achievement but also social and moral values, religious education and behaviour. The interviewees highlighted three components of quality education: the schools’ ethos; the teaching and learning environment; and the resources needed to effect this kind of education. The first two were more evident in the prep school and the third one at Chetolah Park.

e. Programmes to address violence

One outcome of community violence can be trauma and aggressive behaviour in children. The education centre benefits from a number of programmes specially designed for children living in the inner city, most only available for government primary schools. The School-Wide Positive Behaviour Interventions and Support (SWPBIS) programme seeks to promote positive behavioural principles and practices amongst children instead of aggressive, violent behaviour.⁽³⁸⁾ The Chetolah Mel Nathan Education Centre was one of the first participating schools in the programme in 2018. All staff were trained and the team developed the programme’s main components of respect, responsibility, safety and unity. The programme is fully integrated into every aspect of school life. Instead of focusing on negative rules to drive behaviour, for example “don’t run, don’t talk, don’t steal”, it uses “positive tag lines”, such as “walk along the corridor quiet zone, use your own materials/respect each other’s space”. At the beginning of each term, each class discusses and determines the rules for the term and the consequences for breaking the rules. Children receive small rewards for good behaviour.

The HeartMath⁽³⁹⁾ programme, offered through the Ministry of National Security, is a pre-emptive behaviour intervention programme teaching children how to remain calm, find inner peace and not react aggressively to provocation. The “math” refers to counting the heart’s rhythm, and the teacher who worked on this programme said it “helped the children to calm down, to breathe, talking and transferring energy”.

Prior to the merger, the prep school had some connections with local service clubs and non-governmental organizations, which continued after the merger. Fight for Peace,⁽⁴⁰⁾ under its Safer Communities Programme, works in communities affected by violence. Children channel unused energy into sports, such as karate, focusing on self-defence, self-control and self-respect.

The staff feel that these programmes all expose children to “other options and approaches” and complement what the school is attempting to do. To date, no formal evaluation of these programmes has taken place.

f. Perceptions of the merger

All the prep school teachers were employed at the education centre, and prep school children had automatic access. There was still some regret that the prep school had closed. There had been some differences in socialization and teaching patterns, and some stigma was attached to the government primary school, as is common for many schools in inner-city communities. There were some positive feelings about the new school, however: “From observation and reports, it is coming together in a positive shape. The new leadership and the prep culture are resulting in an enhanced teaching and learning environment”. Whilst the prep school programme was commended, the strengths of the education centre were also recognized, including its ability to “compete with other schools”. There was also positive feedback on the new mixed school board, and the benefits of the experience brought by both groups.

g. The COVID-19 pandemic

The education centre has had little time to fully experience and build on the merger. From mid-March 2020, when the Jamaican government ordered school closures due to COVID-19, life became very difficult for teachers, children and parents. The MOEYI, schools and teachers were unprepared and hurriedly found ways to continue children’s education, putting in place a number of systems. The teachers prepared worksheets and tried to connect with the children online. All teachers had personal electronic devices, mainly phones, but some had very limited home internet access. This was the first time the children had done any online activities. One teacher was particularly successful, holding Zoom classes every day. Fifteen children participated regularly, mostly using phones. The remaining 10 either had no device or did not know how to get online. The start of the new school year was delayed by a month, and resumed remotely in October.

The ability to deliver online teaching highlighted four main equity issues: children’s and teachers’ readiness for online learning; the availability of high-quality internet; the availability of IT equipment; and parents’ ability to support their children.

The general lack of readiness was not unique to Hannah Town, although access to internet and devices were big challenges here. The only internet connection in the education centre was in the principal’s office, and while most families had more than one device, mainly phones, few had wi-fi and data were expensive. Often phones, shared with other family members, were not available to the children. When it became clear that online teaching would continue in the new school year, the government increased its training programmes and sought ways to provide equipment and internet access to more schools and children. The MOEYI rolled out Google’s G Suite learning management system (LMS) for October. Teachers also received training from a local foundation. The school owned some laptops and tablets, and some were provided through the Tablets for Teachers Programme, part of a wage agreement for teachers in the government system. The government provided tablets for Grade 4–6 children whose families were on the PATH programme or were considered “needy”. The age and capacity of these devices resulted in some limitations. Some parents were more concerned about food and money, having lost their livelihoods. Parents preferred face-to-face learning and few had experience with online platforms, so even when equipped could not assist their children. By the new school year, all the teachers were more comfortable with technology and offered their online classes from school. However, in the early weeks, barely one-third of the children participated.